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>Today’s New Band – Pouff

>It was a public holiday over the weekend and so I camped with my girlfriend on a beach in west Wales. The sun blazed, and slowly sank over the sea, turning everything a deep, rich orange. We dozed and crisped up in the heat, had a barbecue and a bonfire, and then slept some more. It was heaven.

It’s funny how, in a world where material goods are pushed more than ever as the solution to all our problems, that a camping trip, a barbecue and a good snooze – with a combined cost of less than a couple of CDs – could still trump any fleeting buzz of happiness brought on by buying a stumping up for a new shiny black plastic gadget.

Music can be grouped in the same ‘less is more’ bracket – music can be as cheap or expensive as you like, but get it right and it’ll give you more joy than just about anything. Today’s New Band know a lot about joy: Pouff (for it is they) crank out musical fun with carefree abandon.

If songs like Peanuts and Ice Cream were piped into commuter trains, then we’d have a world of dementedly happy office-drones, instead of the miserable ones that alight every morning at the station. Listening to the song is like being rhythmically slapped in the face by a clown, bouncing with manic glee.

Wisely choosing not to deviate to far from the ‘Keep It Stupid, Stupid’ template, Butt Kiss hammers, howls and echoes with crazed spontaneity. And does Chicken Farts sound like windy poultry? Well, yes, frankly it does – funky, gaseous fowl.